Bob Nightengale Writes News Story As Opinion Piece

One thing that struck me in the fallout of the Ryan Braun case is how many pundits and fans are decrying the verdict as "a technicality" or "fraudulent" with absolute certainty. Given this case is littered with half truths, rumors, and innuendoes, how can they be so certain? Oh, because "journalists" are propagating half-truths and rumors as facts. I don't know if Braun is "innocent" but what I do know is that we are lacking most of the facts one might want in order to make such a judgment. So where is this certainty coming from? Where are people getting the idea that half truths=truths? Hmmm.....anyway.Here is a straight news piece by Bob Nightengale in USA Today which passes off half-truths and lies of omission as straight fact. As opposed to traditional FJayM fashion, I'm just going to add objective statements  in bold. No commentary, no snark. Just facts that Nightengale finds unimportant to a story of Ryan Braun trying to find redemption after many continue to brand him a cheater after winning an arbitration case invalidating his positive drug test:

PHOENIX – National League MVP Ryan Braun won his appeal against Major League Baseball but is still trying to establish his innocence after his confidential steroids results were leaked, violating MLB's collective bargaining agreement and branded him a cheater before due process was allowed to take shape .

The Milwaukee Brewers left fielder, who was facing a 50-game suspension, became the first major league player to win his drug appeal that we know of, due to the unusual nature of Braun's test being illegally leaked last week, at least in part because of procedural error in collecting his urine sample as well as--according to sources like Will Carroll--because his lawyers were able to demonstrate that that procedural error could have resulted in a false positive.

Braun, speaking passionately in a 25-minute news conference Friday, insisted that he had never taken an illegal substance and his reputation shouldn't have been sullied, supporting that claim by asserting that he has passed 25 other drug tests.

“There's a lot of haters," he said. "There's a lot of people who doubt me. … I'm not dumb enough to pretend like this is going to go away. I recognize this is a challenge that I'm going to have to face for some time."

Braun's credibility might have taken its biggest hit from MLB officials. Rob Manfred, president of labor relations, chastised arbitrator Shyam Das' ruling and was incensed when Braun called the drug-testing system "fatally flawed."

"People are now going to question everything that happens, and rightfully so," Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. "Even though Braunie cleared this up, this will be attached to him the rest of his life. He'll be painted with a broad brush that he's a cheater. And that's sad."

Braun submitted a drug test Oct. 1 at 4:30 p.m. local time after the Brewers' 4-1 home victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the NL Division Series. The administrator, identified by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as Dino Laurenzi Jr., went to a FedEx location that was closed. Braun claimed there are myriad Fed Ex's that are open past 9 PM on Saturday nights, including the one closes to Miller Park. No one on MLB's end has disputed this claim. He stored the sample in his refrigerator for 44 hours before shipping it to a drug testing laboratory in Montreal, or according to many reports he simply left it on a counter in his home without refrigeration. The delay, Braun said, allowed ample time for someone to contaminate his sample.

"Why he didn't bring it in, I don't know," Braun said. "Why was there zero documentation? What could have possibly happened to it during that 44-hour period? There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, the collection process, about the way the entire thing worked that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened. …

"We spoke to biochemists and scientists and asked them how difficult would it be to tamper with somebody's sample. Their response was that if they were motivated, it would be extremely easy."

MLB vehemently denied that the sample was contaminated, saying none of the three seals was broken when it arrived at the lab, although some sources claim that the three seal procedure does not exist and others claim it is easy to forge such a sealing process. Braun won his appeal, according to MLB, because of a procedural irregularity. Other sources, who do not have a vested interest in painting the arbitration process as a tiny loophole, have claimed that there were biological and chemical elements to Braun's defense.

"The extremely experienced collector acted in a professional and appropriate manner," Manfred said in a statement. "He handled Mr. Braun's sample consistent with instructions issued by our jointly retained collection agency. The arbitrator found that those instructions were not consistent with certain language in our program, even though the instructions were identical to those used by many other drug programs. The question of how this is relevant to the Braun case was not addressed by Manfred.

"Our program is not 'fatally flawed.' Changes will be made promptly to clarify the instructions provided to collectors regarding when samples should be delivered to FedEx based on the arbitrator's decision. Neither Mr. Braun nor the MLBPA contended in the grievance that his sample had been tampered with or produced any evidence of tampering." In fact, many sources said that Braun's team argued that the test--which yielded testosterone levels three times (or greater, depending on sources) higher than the highest recorded positive--might have been a result of improper storage affecting the testosterone count.

Victor Conte, founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) and convicted felon with a vested interest in showing the widespread usage of Performance Enhancing Drugs, says MLB can avoid problems by using a carbon isotope ratio test, which he said can easily confirm whether synthetic testosterone is discovered in the system.

"If they used this test, they would bust everybody," Conte said, in an attempt to play down his place in the public eye as anomalous criminal. "There's no radar to go under, no loophole. They're not using designer steroids, but they're using fast-acting testosterone." Conte is, of course, not an expert on Performance Enhancing Drugs but in fact a convicted felon who served time in federal prison for conspiracy, money laundering, and bribing grand juries.

Says Brewers pitcher and player representative Chris Narveson, "We want drug testing. But we just want it done right."